Generation Alpha
Generation Alpha, often shortened to Gen Alpha, is the demographic cohort succeeding Generation Z and preceding the proposed Generation Beta. While researchers and popular media loosely identify the early 2010s as the starting birth years and the 2020s as the ending birth years, these ranges are not precisely defined and may vary depending on the source. Named after alpha, the first letter of the Greek alphabet, Generation Alpha is the first to be born entirely in the 21st century and the third millennium. The majority of Generation Alpha are the children of Millennials.
Generation Alpha is the first full generation not to have known a world without smartphones and social media. They were born at a time of falling fertility rates across much of the world, and experienced the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic as young children. In the 2020s, children's entertainment has been increasingly dominated by portable digital technology, social networks, and streaming services, with interest in traditional television concurrently falling. Changes in the use of technology in classrooms and other aspects of life have had a significant effect on how this generation has experienced early learning compared to previous generations. Studies have suggested that health problems related to screen time, allergies, and obesity became increasingly prevalent in the late 2010s.
Terminology
The name Generation Alpha originated from a 2008 survey conducted by the Australian consulting agency McCrindle Research, according to founder Mark McCrindle, who is generally credited with the term. McCrindle describes how his team arrived at the name in a 2015 interview:When I was researching my book The ABC of XYZ: Understanding the Global Generations it became apparent that a new generation was about to commence and there was no name for them. So I conducted a survey to find out what people think the generation after Z should be called and while many names emerged, and Generation A was the most mentioned, Generation Alpha got some mentions too and so I settled on that for the title of the chapter Beyond Z: Meet Generation Alpha. It just made sense as it is in keeping with scientific nomenclature of using the Greek alphabet in lieu of the Latin and it didn't make sense to go back to A, after all they are the first generation wholly born in the 21st Century and so they are the start of something new not a return to the old.
McCrindle Research also took inspiration from the naming of hurricanes, specifically the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season in which the names beginning with the letters of the Latin alphabet were exhausted, and the last six storms were named with the Greek letters alpha to zeta. "Generation Alpha" is sometimes shortened to "Generation A".
In 2020 and 2021, some anticipated that the global impact of the COVID-19 pandemic would become this generation's defining event, suggesting the name Generation C or "Coronials" for those either born during, or growing up during, the pandemic. Psychologist Jean Twenge refers to this cohort as "Polars" in light of the growing political polarization of the United States during the 2010s and 2020s, as well as the melting of polar ice caps, a sign of climate change. This demographic cohort has also been dubbed "Generation AI" in light of the increasing role of artificial intelligence in daily activities and the "iPad kids" after a popular series of tablet computers.
Date and age range definitions
There is no consensus yet on the birth years for Generation Alpha. McCrindle Research uses 2010–2024 with some news outlets citing them, while others using shorter ranges, such as 2011–2021 or 2013–2021. However other sources, while they have not specified a range for Generation Alpha, have specified end years for Generation Z of 2012 or 2013, which suggests a later date range instead of McCrindle's for Generation Alpha. For example, psychologist Jean Twenge defines Generation Alpha as those born from 2013 to 2029. The Cambridge Dictionary, which added Gen Alpha to its corpus in 2025, defines this cohort generally as people born during the 2010s and 2020s.Despite the defined boundary between Generation Z and Generation Alpha not being universally agreed upon, individuals born in the cusp years between the two demographic cohorts are sometimes assorted into a "micro-generation" known as Zalphas.
Demographics
As of 2015, there were some two and a half million people born every week around the globe; Generation Alpha was expected to reach close to two billion by 2025. By 2024, Generation Alpha has exceeded 2 billion members worldwide. For comparison, the United Nations estimated that the human population was about 7.8 billion in 2020, up from 2.5 billion in 1950. As of 2020, roughly three-quarters of all people reside in Africa and Asia, where most human population growth is coming from, as nations in Europe and the Americas tend to have too few children to replace themselves.The number of people above 65 years of age exceeded those between the ages of zero and four for the first time in 2018. If current trends continue, the ratio between these two age groups will top two by 2050.
Birth rates have been falling around the world due to rising standards of living, higher access to contraceptives, and more educational and economic opportunities. In fact, about half of all countries had sub-replacement fertility in the mid-2010s. The global average reproduction rate in 1950 was 4.7 but dropped to 2.4 in 2017. However, this average masks the huge variation between countries. Niger has the world's highest fertility rate at 7.1, while South Korea has one of the lowest at 0.78. In general, the more developed countries, including much of Europe, the United States, South Korea, and Japan, tend to have lower reproduction rates, with people statistically having fewer children, and at later ages.
Surveys conducted in developed economies suggest that women's desired family sizes tend to be higher than the one they end up building. Stagnant wages and eroding welfare programs are the contributing factors. While some countries like Sweden and Singapore have tried various incentives to raise their birth rates, such policies have not been particularly successful. Moreover, birth rates following the COVID-19 global pandemic might drop significantly due to economic recession. Data from late 2020 and early 2021 suggests that in spite of expectations of a baby boom occurring due to COVID-19 lockdowns, the opposite ended up happening in developed nations, though developing countries were not heavily affected.
Education is commonly cited as one of the most important determinants. The more educated a person is, the fewer children they have, and the later the age is in which they have children. At the same time, global average life expectancy has risen from 52 in 1960 to 72 in 2017. Higher interest in education brings about an environment in which mortality rates fall, which in turn increases population density.
Half of the human population lived in urban areas in 2007, and this figure became 55% in 2019. If the current trend continues, it will reach two thirds by the middle of the century. A direct consequence of urbanization is a falling birth rate. People in urban environments demand greater autonomy and exercise more control over their bodies. In mid-2019, the United Nations estimated that the human population will reach about 9.7 billion by 2050, a downward revision from an older projection to account for faster falling fertility rates in the developing world. The global annual rate of growth has been declining steadily since the late twentieth century, dropping to about one percent in 2019. By the late 2010s, 83 of the world's countries had sub-replacement fertility.
During the early to mid-2010s, more babies were born to Christian families than to those of any other religion in the world, while Muslims had a faster rate of growth. About 33% of the world's babies were born to Christians who made up 31% of the global population between 2010 and 2015, compared to 31% to Muslims, whose share of the human population was 24%. During the same period, the religiously unaffiliated made up 16% of the population and gave birth to 10% of the world's children.
Economic trends and prospects
Effects of intensifying wealth inequality in the early twenty-first century is expected to be seen in the next generation, as parental income and educational level are positively correlated with children's success. In the United States, children from families in the highest income quintile are the most likely to live with married parents, followed by children of the middle class and the bottom quintile.Education
In many developing countries around the world, large numbers of children could not read a simple passage in their own national languages by the age of ten, according to the World Bank. In the Congo, the Philippines, and Ethiopia, over 80% of children were in this category. In India and Indonesia, the rates were at about 50%. In China and Vietnam, the corresponding numbers were under 20%.Asia
Addressing Japan's demographic crisis and low birthrate, in 2019, the government of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe introduced a number of education reforms. Starting in October 2019, preschool education would be free for all children between the ages of three and five, and child care would be free for children under the age of two from low-income households. These programs would be funded by a consumption tax hike, from eight to ten percent. Starting April 2020, entrance and tuition fees for public as well as private universities would be waived or reduced. Students from low-income and tax-exempt families would be eligible for financial assistance to help them cover textbook, transportation, and living expenses. The whole program was projected to cost 776 billion yen per year.In 2020, the government of Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyễn Xuân Phúc recommended a series of education reforms in order to raise the fertility rates of localities that found themselves below the replacement level, including the construction of daycare facilities and kindergartens in urban and industrial zones, housing subsidies for couples with two children in sub-replacement areas, and priority admission for children of said couples in public schools.
In early 2021, the government of China announced a plan to invest more in physical education in order to make young boys "more masculine". Due to a combination of the one-child policy and the traditional preference for sons, young boys are perceived by many to be overly coddled by their parents, and looked at as effeminate, delicate, and timid. In order to calm public concerns, state-controlled media published pieces downplaying gender roles and gender differences.
In India, the population of Generation Alpha was recorded as 346.9 million in the year 2011. By 2021, this figure slightly decreased to 336.9 million. As per the latest projections, it is estimated that the population of Generation Alpha will further decline to approximately 327 million by the year 2026.